RSV and Pneumonia Hospitalization

Dori started getting sick with coughing, fever and congestion over a week ago. Wynnie caught it from Dori last week, just a few days later. After monitoring them all night on their oxygen levels with their night nurse Stephanie, neither of the babies could keep their O2 levels above low 50's. Normally they breathe without the need for additional O2 and are able to maintain their levels at upper 90s. After both babies being treated with antibiotics and fever meds for over a week, and with the new O2 levels dipping to dangerous levels, the on-call Pulmonologist recommended we take them into the ER.

I gave Wynnie a relaxing quick bath before heading out to the hospital and packed my overnight bag and drove them over to Childrens Medical Center (in Plano) since it's only 15 minutes from the house. In order to transport them, I removed them from the oxygen for the ride. Dori was talking during the ride saying "bye bye" and calling out Wynnie's name. Wynnie was whimpering a strange soft cry but I couldn't pull over because I wanted to get to the ER as soon as possible. By the time I pulled into the ER, Wynnie's face had lost all color (skin color was grey) and his lips were blue. I went into "this is not the time to panic" mode and put Wynnie over my left shoulder and carried Dori on my right forearm.

The ER was completely empty besides the check-in attendant so I while he's asking me for contact information I keep telling him "this one is blue and needs to be placed on oxygen ASAP!"

Within 30 seconds they took the babies back and a team of 6 took over Winner's care while 1-2 people were working on Dori. It took quite a few minutes for Wynnie's color to slowly return. His hands and feet were ice cold. By the time he was regaining his color, my phi mu girls Francine and Angela arrived to the ER to offer support and Chris arrived shortly thereafter. We were hoping to stay at children's in Plano but due to their underlying medical conditions (ml2) and due to a lack of an on-facility anesthesiologist 24 hours a day, the babies were transported to Children's in Dallas via ambulance.

Wynnie had to be intubated and placed on a vent. His body was working too hard and progressively getting weaker with breathing only an O2 mask, thus the need to take the pressure off of him and letting the vent breathe for him. We have mixed feelings about this because intubating an ML2 child is always a very big deal-- it's very risky and could cause more damage than good due to their abnormally narrow airway.

As I write this we are on our 4th day of our hospital stay and Dori has progressively improved, while Wynnie has hovered from "critical yet stable" condition to slipping slightly worse as of last night. Dori was moved out of the ICU yesterday and is on the regular respiratory inpatient unit. Chris, Viktoria and I have been rotating night duties with the babies so that neither of them have to sleep alone. We are also rotating time to spend it with Ben and Alex who are on spring break. Chris's parents came down to help us with Ben and Alex while we're at the hospital and shuttle them back and forth to baseball practice, etc.

We've been very thankful for all the prayers, all the texts and all the wishes for recovery from all our friends and family. It means alot. Ben and Alex worked hard at making lots of scratch and sniff get well signs for the babies. They smell fabulous!! :-) they also were very sweet to visit and pray with the babies yesterday and keep asking when the babies get to come home.

Both babies have RSV... Dori caught it first and it ran its course so he was already in the recovery phase when he arrived to the hospital. Wynnie on the other hand was at the worse part of the course. Aside from having RSV, he has pneumonia, anemia (from all the labs drawn), pulmonary edema (fluid in his lungs) excessive thick congestion he cannot get out, constipation, and more bacterial infection in his lungs. The original plan was to remove him from the vent to allow him to breathe on his own, but since he started having bronchial spasms last night, he'll have to remain on it due to all his respiratory distress. Right now he is getting prepped for a blood transfusion.

Dori's heart is enlarged (see the pictures) due to the RSV making his body work harder. The cardiologists were not overly concerned over it. Now that he is getting better he is smiling and talking.

Thanks for keeping our babies in your prayers and for keeping up with us this week! Your prayers and your friendship is what is helping us get through this with a good outlook.